Azula and her Daughter
by vifetoile89
Summary: Azula escapes from the mental facility on Ember Island, and finds a window to another world. She goes through it thoughtlessly, and finds herself in the world we know as Lyra's England, a world of daemons and witches and the all-powerful Magisterium.
1. First Scroll

Azula and her Daughter

By Vifetoile

This is a companion piece to my other story, 'Marisa and her Mother,' which can be found on my profile. Thank you for reading! More chapters to come.

Basically, this came about as a very strange idea that I had that would not let me alone. Ever. Until I wrote it down and wrote it out. I own neither Azula, nor her world, nor the world of Lyra's Oxford, but then, I never pretended to.

* * *

**First Scroll**

Blaze in me, O Lord Agni, that the words I speak may be clear and true, and ignite spirit and understanding into all who read them.

I, Lady Azula, do put down this record for the Fire Nation scrolls. On this eve of Midwinter, I, the daughter of Fire Lady Ursa, daughter of Lady Shani, shall record the years of my exile following the coronation of my brother Zuko. Many times I have attempted to record these events, both in writing and in speech, but interruptions or mocking disbelief have quelled my efforts up to now. I shall not be denied any longer. I have chosen a mute scribe who will not laugh at me. I have retired to Ember Island, away from what might distract me. This is fitting. It is here that my story began.

When Sozin's Comet came and left – that day, my life broke.

How I can recall that day clearly? My mind was still recovering from the agony and the ecstasy of the Comet, the glorious Comet of the once-in-a-lifetime fire.

The Earth Kingdom addicts to cactus powder refer to being on a mental 'high,' and 'crashing' afterwards. I, to borrow their vulgar phrase, was still 'crashing.'

I remember very little of the immediate aftermath. My brother provided for me to be taken to the North side of Ember Island, which possesses a widely renowned asylum for mental patients. I did not react well to being put there. I had lost everything that I had relied on or believed in, everything. However, I still had my bending, unlike my father.

I bode my time.

For five years I languished in the mental asylum, watching the sun set through my little window. Sometimes Mai, the reigning Fire Lady, would pay me a visit. Sometimes Ty Lee, dressed up like a Kyoshi doll, would sit by me in friendly silence. I never spoke to them. To speak would have been to ask why.

There were exercises. Walks in the grass. Days to fly kites if the weather was nice. I had times outside of my room. But my doctors never seemed to see a change in my condition, though I did change. I became again coherent, became a ghost of my old self again. I just hid my development from them with stony silence. I felt it every day, more keenly, my status – _prisoner_.

Five long years, I waited.

Then, one summer twilight, I escaped, I don't remember how.

I ran along the shore, away from habitation. As the sun started to set, I climbed onto the rocks to be as close to the Western horizon as possible. But when I looked behind me, I saw two things: one, that the high tide had cut off any way for me to get away, and that soon it would swamp me entirely. I retreated into the caves on the water's edge, hoping maybe the water would not rise there.

This is where my story always meets with disbelief. I saw a window in the air, hovering without moving in the air of the cave. Through that window, it was also sunset, but I could see clouds, and trees as one sees in the colder parts of our homeland. I felt a cold wind coming from there. It was _someplace else_.

Again, I didn't think. I scrabbled over the rocks. Once I slipped and screamed when my foot hit the water. When I approached the window, I looked through and felt a colder wind. It still hovered some distance away. If I jumped and missed, it was a narrow crevice in the rocks, and I would likely be trapped, unable to crawl up the rocks as the tide rose.

I looked at the window again, and jumped through.

I landed on grass – grass growing on thick, peaty soil. The sea air was only behind me. I moved like an animal, forward, not caring for destination, just wishing to move, to run. So I ran, and kept running, until the window was out of sight. I was in another world. In the wind, the food, the trees, I could feel the difference with every part of me. Even the sunlight – though it allowed me to Firebend, still, I knew it was a different sun.

I wandered around for several days, eating meat that I caught and cooked myself. To be honest, I quite lost track of time. I followed one road inland. One evening, I heard bells ringing, low and far away, as I fell asleep.

When I woke up, I was being jolted along, and covered with a sheet. When I pulled it off, I saw that I was traveling along a road in a cart with vegetables in it. A young man was driving it, his back to me. A dog sat beside him.

What occurs to me _now_ is that the man must have found me on the road and assumed me to be a dead body, for reasons I'll explain later, and so, intending respect, he put me on the cart to take me to a fit burial site.

Then I had no idea what was going on, but I sat up and demanded it. At once the dog started barking in alarm, and whimpering. He stopped the team of horses and turned around. I grabbed him by the collar and threatened him for his treatment of me. He spoke to me, but I could not understand a word he said. His face was unlike anything I'd seen before. His nose and eyes were very large, and he had hair the color of sand.

I demanded of him where I was, who he was, and what Nation he belonged to. His dog kept making such a racket, barking and yelping, that I shot fire at her, and singed her fur. The man yelped back as if I had burned him. He threw off my grip with the strength of panic and scooped the dog up in his arms, and did not look back at me, but ran down the road. That was my first guess as to the nature of the two, the human and – the animal.

I was baffled, and had learned nothing. It wasn't a total waste, however. I claimed the cart for my own, took it into a by-road, and had enough vegetables to make a sufficient diet for a few days, even if I did have to cook them in my own hands. I was happy enough.

After a time, a strange delight stole into my veins and animated my being. I had food, and I was in an entirely new world. By night I traced out new constellations, heard the song of perfectly alien birds. I could forget the smug smile on the face of that Water Tribe witch as she slipped her arm around Zuko. I could forget Ty Lee and Mai's faces at last.

A day passed while I gathered strength. I was not in any sort of hurry. It was not luxurious at all – I had to bathe in a stream – but what would have troubled me before did not trouble me now. I was alone, in solitude, and unable to understand the language, yet I was not lonely. I felt free.

That feeling did not last. Soon I grew very stiff and unhappy with sleeping on the wooden cart, and my vegetables grew rotten. I bathed in the stream, made myself as presentable as I could, and then marched into the village whose church bell I had heard for several days.

What a sight I must have made! I could not put my hair into the traditional topknot, so I let it sit heavy over my shoulders. I still wore the inmate's toga of the asylum, but I cleaned it as well as I could.

As I walked down the street, I got many strange, wide-eyed glances. Everyone had the same large eyes and pale hair as the man on the cart – in fact, I did see him at one point, goggling at me like any commoner. I lifted my chin and refused to be bowed. I approached him and demanded to be taken to the governor.

From behind, someone hit me over the head, with something hard. I blacked out.


	2. The Priest

Azula and her Daughter

By Vifetoile

This is a companion piece to my other story, 'Marisa and her Mother,' which can be found on my profile. Thank you for reading! More chapters to come.

Basically, this came about as a very strange idea that I had that would not let me alone. Ever. Until I wrote it down and wrote it out. I own neither Azula, nor her world, nor the world of Lyra's Oxford, but then, I never pretended to.

The Priest

When I awoke, I was tied down to a chair. I was in a small shrine of some sort, before an altar with candles placed before the icon of a saint, and a symbol that would become very familiar to me – a single, long vertical stick and two horizontal lines close to the top, the one above shorter than the one below. I heard someone behind me. I turned to look, but could not move very far. A man stepped around from behind me, coming into my view.

He was taller than me and a bit older, but his hair was still thick and a pale blonde color. He held a small book and was reciting from it, swinging incense from a thurible all around me that made me cough, and I could not take a breath to firebend.

Hearing a soft caw, I looked up.

A bird that looked like one of the messenger falcons we use back home looked down at me and screeched softly. Something in her expression reminded me of Admiral Zhao. I coughed again. I didn't like looking at her, and I didn't like her looking at me.

At length the man closed the book and stood between me and the altar. The falcon fluttered down onto his shoulder. I was surprised. She came without so much as a glance from him, a partnership more perfect than any I had ever seen before between animal and trainer. I was soon to learn.

The man spoke, and at first I turned away – then I realized he was speaking my own language. His accent was thick, as though from disuse, and his diction was formal. I looked at him closely. He seemed no different from any other man in the village, aside from the black robe with the white collar, the silver cross (same as on the altar) hanging from his neck. He repeated the question:

"Who or what are you?"

I replied after a momen. "I am Azula, rightful Fire Lord, the child of the Phoenix King Ozai, descendant of the Sun spirit Agni himself. I have come far from home," I added. "Who are you that dares question me?"

"I am called Father Marius," he answered calmly. "I am a priest of this diocese."

"How are you able to understand me?"

"My question is more pressing. Where is your –" and then he gave me some word that sounded like the word for 'spirit' or 'demon,' with a slight vowel change.

"I am sorry?"

He asked for it again.

"I do not know what you're talking about. Don't pester me!"

"If you have lost it, then your distress is understandable."

"I don't understand your request. I do not have a 'demon' possessing me."

"Possessing you?" He seemed quite concerned now. "Are you a witch from the northern lands? Is your dæmon far away?"

"I do not have a demon!"

"But you must."

"And what makes you say that I must, you impudent man?" I noticed, with delight, that the candles behind him flared up, though he did not seem to notice. The incense-pot also smoked more, which made me cough.

"My own dæmon tells me so." At that phrase, the falcon on his shoulder extended her wings and fluttered them, sending even more of that horrible incense into my face.

I coughed again. "Tell your – your bird there – not to blow that smoke into my face! I need clean air!" I glared at him. This man, for all his spiritual trappings, seemed the very last sort to commune with spirits and ghosts. But then again, so did the Avatar. "Where is this dæmon of yours?" A thought had occurred to me. "Is it a dragon? Or a Sky-Bison?"

Now his face was completely perplexed. He set the incense burner on the floor and made a fist with his now-free hand. The falcon hopped on to it. "_This_ is my dæmon," he said. "You mean to say you did not recognize it?"

"I do not. Now tell me where I am. How are you able to understand me when none others could?"

"You are not speaking gibberish," he said. "I traveled as a missionary for some years far abroad, including the Ching Kingdoms. I assumed you were from the Manchu tribe, because you don't have the bound feet. When I spoke to you, I took a guess as to which dialect you would speak. A fortunate guess. I apologize. My Chinese is very… faded? What is the word…"

"The Ching Kingdoms? Manchu? Those names mean nothing to me," I said.

"Where are you from?" he asked.

"I am from the Fire Nation… but," I said, suddenly remembering, "You don't know it. I come from another world."

He questioned me for a long time about that. It took a long time for him to believe that I did come from another world. Eventually, he accepted that, and that not only did I not _have_ a dæmon, but I never had had one, and that I truly did not know what one was. When he accepted that, then he accepted the story that I came from another world. I offered to show him the window, but he was less interested in that at first; he asked me many questions, posed hypothetical questions to me (if I saw a child drowning in a well, what would be my response?). When he had finished, he leaned back and contemplated me for a while.

"This is strange. Wealtha tells me you _must_ have a dæmon, and I do not think that you _lack_ a dæmon, but your answers suggest that you don't."

"Can you use some word other than dæmon? And who was that person you named?"

"Wealtha. My own dæmon." He held out his fist, and the bird hopped on to it. Her feathers shone in the candlelight; she was really a handsome animal. "She is my soul."

"When did you first meet her?"

"She was born at the same time I was," he answered, quite patiently.

"I'd like to talk to her personally."

"Miss, you should not think of the two of us as separate beings. To talk to me is to talk to her. We are a single person."

I looked at him and the graceful bird on his hand and felt – lonely, somehow. It was not the first time I had experienced such an emotion, but to be moved so by this bizarre man and animal did not please me.

That's enough for tonight. I'm tired. I will continue tomorrow.

So, where was I? Father Marius, yes? Yes. Him and his dæmon, Wealtha. It took me a very long time to pronounce her name properly, but eventually I did. It seemed important to him that I get it right – more important than getting his own name correct. This intrigued me. I thought I could manipulate him like a doll, but he proved more contrariwise than I had imagined.

For one, he had taken a lifelong vow of celibacy, which I could not believe. He would not even have me sleep in the same house, but kept me in the small guest house that stood out in his herb garden. He did not let me talk to other people, like the man who delivered eggs or the fat woman who did his washing. I attended a Mass, it was called, every seventh day, and despised it (the reading was not in 'Chinese'), but it gave me an ample opportunity to observe the villagers. I sat to one side, by myself, and watched as the congregation would bow their heads in silence, murmur the same low words to each other, go up to eat a little wafer, shake hands afterwards. And every member, from the tiniest child to the old man who could only come once a month, had a dæmon. I refused to feel lonely, though.

I could appreciate Father Marius' speech, even if I couldn't understand it. The effect that he had on the population was amazing. If he was in the mood to do so, he could make his entire congregation quake in fear, burst out into raking sobs, or stand up singing with joy. Some days he would have members of the congregation crawling to him on their hands and knees to kiss his robes and murmur. Such was his power. Such was the speaker he was.

I busied myself copiously with learning the language of the place, and its history. Father Marius was a good teacher, and I was eager to impress him. As my skills in English – that's the language of that country, I can still speak it – improved, Father Marius humbly requested that, in return, I teach him something of the Fire Nation and the world that I had come from.

So, I did, in slow lessons. He was most interested in our religion, our gods, (of course!) and the notion of the Avatar. He never gave up trying to convert me to Christianity. He could never convince me that their Jesus Christ was a firebender, so I had no interest – though the bit about him coming back from the dead was intriguing. But no. The most the man did was walk on water and make the dead rise again – clearly a Waterbender, even a Bloodbender. I never said this, because Father Marius quite clearly took his Christ seriously.

Father Marius did, however, catch my attention by saying that Jesus Christ was the Avatar of his God, who was born but once, and has never died, but lives on in eternal glory. That made sense to me, and I explained it to him: Avatar Aang lived on for a hundred years by accessing the Avatar State in a glacier (here followed a quick explanation of the Avatar State). When I said this, at first, Father Marius frowned, but presently he smiled.

"Actually, that is a very good analogy," he said to me. "Jesus Christ now communes with the power and life imbuing the entire planet, all the creatures that live under his laws and kindly eye, all the good souls that now dwell with Him in heaven. He now… you could say he sleeps, dreaming, of the day that he will awaken again to lead the world into a new age of peace." Then he started to laugh. And his laughter was infectious; I started laughing too.

I was, however, a little more interested than I let on in his experiments to try and bring out my dæmon. I did wonder what _he_ – Father Marius assured me that my dæmon would be male – would look like.

Could I pick his form? No, Father Marius told me, the form was not of my choosing. It reflected my own inner nature, and had been settled at around the age when I 'discovered Original Sin,' was how he phrased it. I later put together that he meant puberty, and I laughed at his prudishness in the solitude of my own room.

Yes, I could laugh with him. When I made a joke that he enjoyed, I was happy. I was not used to being treated like an equal – he never once respected my rank – but at least the villagers were afraid of me. But Father Marius was not afraid, per se. He was interested in me, interested in my bending, my world, in what observations I could share with him about my – our day-to-day life.

I can see him even now, with a worn book in his hand, with his Wealtha perched on his shoulder like a shadow.

I would be lying if I said I knew what initially attracted me to him. He was older than me. Not very handsome. Not a firebender, not even of my world. Perhaps it was the vow of celibacy he had taken, making his conquest that much more difficult. Perhaps it was the way he hesitated to touch me, that let me know that he wanted me. Maybe I was jealous of the closeness of him and his dæmon. Or, maybe, maybe it was simply because he was the only person I could talk to, or who _would_ ever talk to me. It was a foolish lust, insane, maybe even wrong.

But when I realized my own desire, I would not be stopped. I had to have him.

I set to work. Seducing him was probably the most difficult thing I ever did in my life. I had to be subtle as a crow-snake, yet at other times as shy and vulnerable as a koalaotter after a storm. Truly, if seduction was not an art form before me, I elevated it to an art form.

Yet, I also had to approach it like a science. His theology divided the self into three aspects: the body, the dæmon, or 'soul,' and the 'spirit.' I knew that I would have to think like him in order to seduce him – yet, yet, take advantage of my exotic beauty, strange culture, and everything alien about me. I had to think like a firebender, and like a priest.

For his body, I had no doubt.

I knew that I intrigued him as a student, as a firebender, as a member of another culture; that I could enthrall his mind, with the help of his body.

Now his dæmon, _she_ did not fully trust me. Perhaps it was my lack of a dæmon, or maybe she saw in me the same 'monster' that my mother did. I did not know how to win her over, but I knew I would have to – unless I did not want his full consent. And was I, the Fire Nation princess Azula, who could have any man at a snap of her fingers, worried about _consent_?

Well, a little bit. And besides, it is not as though I had had much experience with men as sexual beings. I knew that my body, my 'modesty' as Li and Lo called it, was far from the least bit of my dowry. But, I assumed then that now, in a new world, I was nobody. I had no dowry. My body meant nothing to no-one but myself. It was a very freeing thought. Maybe _that_ was what inspired me to entrap him. But enough about my motives and my ways.

The end of the fact was that… I won.

I won, and it was a sweet triumph. Never mind that he rejected me in the end, never mind that I paid for this triumph for the rest of my time in that world – it was sweet.

We shall break for now. I don't want any misconceptions in this next section.

Oh Agni, sun-face, thunder-voiced, fire-handed, give me the clarity to relate what is true; give me the courage to complete what I had begun.

It was summer. Of course it was summer. I woke up one day, feeling my strongest and my most beautiful. I let my hair loose and pulled on a simple dress that Father Marius had gotten for me – a used dress from a family in the parish. As I walked to the manse (that was the word for Father Marius' house) I heard drums and singing coming from the town square. I asked Marius what it was (by this point I called him simply 'Marius' in my head). He answered that it was a celebration among the locals, a leftover from the pagan days, a fertility rite. He seems quite miffed at the idea.

I left the house, planning on going – but then I had a realistic idea of what my arrival there would mean. So I snuck down to the Town Square and watched the Midsummer's Day festival from the shady part of an alley.

It was very odd. They had erected a pole in the center of the square and danced around it in circles to attach ribbons. The men came up and threw bones and wood around the pole, like there was going to be a great fire. The girls wore flowers in their hair – the beautiful white flowers that were growing all over in that season – and white dresses. I admit I sighed with some jealousy.

The crowd in the festival was amazing – though they were not synchronized, there seemed to be a kind of unity among their movements, as though they were all hypnotized. Their dæmons skirted about their ankles or swooped overhead giddily. There was a commonness of mind among them. I've seen it at our Fire Festivals.

At one point a young woman ran past me, laughing, while a young man gave chase. They did not see me, but her circlet of mayflowers fell off of her head. It landed between me and the first row of dancers, but closer to me.

At that moment, that circlet of mayflowers was like a crown to me, a crown of the most perfect white gold.

If I could wear it – if only I could show them what a dancer I could be! If only they might _acknowledge_ me—!

A bit of my madness fell on me again. I darted forward and seized the thing, and straightening up, set it on my hair. I can feel it there yet.

The drummers and musicians were on the opposite end of the square. They stopped playing when they saw me. The dancers stopped. They stared. Their dæmons stared. For a moment I thought they might accept me, welcome me, forgive me –

But a cry came from someone in the crowd: _"Burn the witch!_"

They ran at me, their smiles dissolved into grimaces, or else twisted into sadistic rictuses. They came at me all at once, twisting my arms behind my back, shoving me into the dust and then yanking me back, tearing the circlet of flowers off of my head, tying my hands and gagging my mouth with dirty silk ribbons.

In a frenzy, a mass hysteria, they were dragging me towards the pole. I could hear their whoops and yells like the shrieks of demons. Every time I tried to draw breath to burn them all, one would whack me on my back and take my breath away.

Before I knew it, I was tied to the stake with thick hemp rope. They were dancing again in a circle around _me_, chanting, "Burn the witch! Burn the witch!" The girls fluttered their skirts up and the men whipping their hats in the air, and every dæmon was letting up a cry. I smelt the smoke – and I could sense the fire.

They had set me on a pyre. They had tried to drown a fish. I smiled beneath the gag on my mouth and took a deep breath, feeling the fire well up inside of me, and then, I saw _him_.

He was racing up from the manse, running unlike I'd ever seen him run. Wealtha was swooping overhead and cawing loudly enough to drown out the other dæmons.

"Stop!" he was yelling in English.

I had to swallow my flame, which brought tears to my eyes and made me cough, but I saw how my situation had altered. At once, I knew how to play it.

He admonished the crowd gathered there in a thunderous voice, a voice I'd heard him use from the pulpit. Its effect on the crowd was mesmerizing; those who had been shrieking devils became cowed and repentant. I did not even understand what he was saying, but I felt proud of him and wanted him even more.

He himself climbed the pyre, bones and twigs cracking under his feet, and untied me. I could have stood up all right in a moment, but I leaned on him, saying his name in a soft moan.

I could feel his heart race under my hand. His dæmon fluttered her wings and cawed, a warning to him – and maybe even to me. He gestured and at his words, the peasants tore down their abominable pole and doused their torches. They started to go home, heads hung low, their ribbons and flowers discarded.

At my feet I saw a beautiful crown of mayflowers, barely spoiled by the dust. In a gesture too quick for anyone to see, I snatched it up. I did not put it on my head, but I held it gently in my hand, while my other arm was wrapped around Marius.

He led me back to the manse. He took me upstairs, to his own bedroom, which was only a degree more luxurious than my own – thicker sheets, a softer mattress.

I let him lay me on the bed gently. It was then that I realized I actually _was_ injured – bruises on my back, rope burns on my wrists.

He muttered something, thickly, about summoning a nurse – I could feel his voice hesitating as I panted – but I clung to his arm, pleading, "No, no, the nurse will be one of them, she'll hate me, she'll try to kill me, don't leave me."

He patted my hand and said he would be back in a minute with some medicine. As he left the room, his dæmon was almost pushing him out of there with her black wings. As for me, I felt the pain of my bruises and trembled, remembering the fear of the mob, but I lifted the crown of mayflowers to my nose and inhaled deeply. I smiled.

I apologize. It has been a very long time since I resumed this narrative. This part, one can imagine, is very difficult for me to relate. It was… it was a time when I learned very, very much from Marius, and taught him many things. It was – how can I describe it without making it sound like a lament from a three-penny minstrel show?

I seduced him. I entrapped him. I ravished him. I let him love me.

He let me love him.

In our secret way, by night, with drawn curtains and muffled voices, we abandoned every law that either one of us had ever known, abandoned them to explore each other. It was an incredible triumph for me.

Was I happy?

Well – I suppose I was happy. At first, I was very happy. Purely happy. Unselfishly happy, I guess, because I knew he was deriving just as much delight as I was. Only his dæmon was uneasy. I admit, that was the only time – one of the few times – when I wanted a dæmon, to set her at ease. Then my delight became selfish. I knew he was not happy, and grew more anguished every time we were together, but I was still happy, and I was glad that I could make him suffer so. I should have… never mind.

A month or two after the Maying, he woke me up in the middle of the night. He forced me to get dressed. I realized that he had lit the chasubles, every single one, even the one that was only supposed to be taken out on Easter Sunday – their holiest holiday. The house was so full of incense so that I could barely breathe, let alone firebend. His dæmon fluttered by him, loosing the air enough around him so that he could tell me, "Go now. I'm giving you this so that you can start over, but leave this town now. Never come back to this village, never seek me out again, never talk to me again. If I should hear your footfalls again, I shall turn my face from you and spit on your dæmon. I leave you to the spirits of the crossroads. Never darken my door again."

The last part sounded like he was quoting something – something properly Chinese, not a page out of his ridiculous Scriptures. He pressed a purse of money into my hands. There was a time when I would have tossed that on the ground, spurning his charity, but I was wiser now.

I stumbled backwards. At that hour, I was nauseous and dizzy from the smoke and confused at his behavior. But I looked at his dæmon, Wealtha, looming above the door, her feathers bristling. I knew I could not win against her any longer. But, I was still a Fire Nation princess, and what was he? A backward priest living in a shabby manse, wasting his mind and his life tutoring clodding peasants in a land that didn't have bending of any sort. After he warned me, "Never darken my door again," I lifted my head high, and said, coldly,

"As if I'd bother."

I walked away with my head held high. I could hear his dæmon cawing loudly in triumph, so I opened my mouth and sang the first song I could think of – '_Brave Soldier Boy_.' I know it was ridiculous. Since then I've thought of about a thousand different and better songs I could have sung – practically anything would have been better than that – but even I can lack words at some point.

I made straight for the village square, intending to wake the whole village so they could all see me parading past. He made no motion to stop me. I walked right on the spot where the May-Pole had been erected and did a pirouette, singing more loudly than ever. By that point my head had cleared a little and I sang instead a ballad I'd heard from Love Among the Dragons – the one that the lead soprano sings when her lover has rejected her. It's a very angry, defiant song – one that I admit I always liked. I sang it loud, even though nobody in the town could understand me. I saw lights go on as I passed.

However, they didn't rush out of their houses and demand an explanation of Father Marius. Instead they rang bells – which I'd learned was their way of warding off a malevolent spirit. Good riddance.

We'll leave it at that for today. Tomorrow I won't go into so much detail.


	3. The Witches

Azula and her Daughter

By Vifetoile

This is a companion piece to my other story, 'Marisa and her Mother,' which can be found on my profile. Thank you for reading! More chapters to come.

Basically, this came about as a very strange idea that I had that would not let me alone. Ever. Until I wrote it down and wrote it out. I own neither Azula, nor her world, nor the world of Lyra's Oxford, but then, I never pretended to.

The Priest

The Witch

I had learned enough English by this point to get along. I also knew that the window I sought lay "North," so I went North. I went too far North.

I found a small stray dog that was looking for an owner, so I adopted it, thinking it could act as my dæmon. It was small and friendly and well-trained, and it prevented people from giving me double-takes in disbelief when I walked down the street. People who spent too much time with me would realize that he wasn't my soul at all, but he served my purposes. I called him Lee.

One day I woke up and realized I – Lee and I – had spent three days straight on a boat headed North. I was leaving my window home behind me, in the South. I could have set the entire ship on fire. And I was running out of money.

Let it be noted, I _hate _being low on money. No sound in the world holds quite as much terror as the spare jingle of coins as they shrink to less and less. That sound nearly drove me – scratch that. Nothing drove me mad. I was perfectly calm that entire time.

I was running out of money. I figured I would find some handsome gentleman and seduce him and live on his gold. But I failed to consider the kind of ship that I was on. It was a sad sack of a vessel, a cargo ship that the Fire Nation navy would scorn. Even when I landed in port, my clothes were tatters, pieces of charity from that backwards town. And no man would accept me when he realized I had no dæmon.

The last man that I approached – a heavy, red-bearded man with whiskey on his breath – simply picked me up and hauled me away, depositing me at the door of some office and yelling something to the man inside. He then shambled away, leaving me very confused. Lee soon arrived, yelping at my feet for me to pick me up. I almost kicked him away, but the door opened.

A middle-aged man with bright green eyes and a large cat for a dæmon stood there and said to me, in English, "Greetings and welcome, Sister. Come inside." But he looked at me and then said, "You are not a witch."

"No, I am not a witch," I said, finally picking up Lee so that the cur would stop barking. "I am not of this world."

He raised his eyebrows and said, "Come inside, then, Miss. We have much to talk about."

He invited me in – his house was warm and well-furnished – and introduced himself as the Witch Consul. He spoke to me politely and in slow English that I could understand. That was how I learned about the witches. They knew about other worlds, but had rarely spoken of them. They were women in that world – beautiful women – powerful women – who were respected and feared, but who did not keep their dæmons near by them. I wanted to be one of them. I did not say as much out loud, however.

He rang a little bell and had a servant serve dinner. The servant had a dog dæmon that looked much like Lee, and watching them together, I could see clearly for the first time the difference that would be obvious to anyone of that world, between a dæmon and a real animal.

The Witch Consul poured a hot drink out for me – he called it chocolatl, and I found myself liking it _very_ much – and then he asked me about my world, and how I had gotten here.

I asked if he could understand Chinese, because it would make explaining it so much easier. He said he could not, and was sorry. I swallowed some more chocolatl and began my story. It was good, so good, to be able to tell everything without once being judged. He wanted to know everything, and I was only too happy to tell. If I wanted a term to describe something, he would willingly provide it. I almost felt as though I was back with Marius – but I refused to let myself think of him.

When night had fallen, he asked me to demonstrate firebending for him. He had a small, snowy courtyard in his house, and I did so happily.

He served me a good dinner, told one of his servants to give Lee a bath, and put me in his best guest room with a bathroom right off of it. It was a good night, and I slept well.

When I woke up the next morning, I heard voices on my way downstairs. Women's voices. I was cautious going down the stairs. When I entered the consul's parlor the conversation ceased. I counted five women there, young women in rags of black silk. Most of them had long hair – only one of them had her dæmon nearby, and he was an arctic tern. All wore small crowns of flowers, but no two had a similar crown. They each looked different, but there was some kind of shared spirit among them – they each carried themselves as if they were queens, which gave them more charisma than if they were beautiful.

The Consul was seated on a chair, and he stood up and offered me breakfast. I said, "I would rather you introduce these women to me."

"Most certainly." He extended a hand to indicate each of the women, and they said their own names.

"I am Layla Kamar," said the first one, a swarthy lady with jasmine flowers in her hair. Others named themselves Tenna Huang (who looked 'Chinese,' or, more properly, like one of the Water Tribe), Lorelei Ashpetal (she was the one with the tern dæmon), Mesoel Pekkala, whose hair was the fairest, with red flowers in it, and, the seeming oldest, whose hair was completely white with small lilies of the valley in it, Celsia Perrenia.

Isn't it funny, how even now I can clearly see their names and their faces?

Celsia Perrenia told me that they were the queens of the witches in the area. They asked me to tell about my other world, and my other life.

So I explained, more coherently than I had to the Witch Consul the day before, and in greater detail. My telling wore into the night, but they did not seem to mind at all. We were served a peculiar dinner, consisting mostly of fruit and meat that had only been heated, not seasoned. By now my voice was weak with so much talking. I offered to demonstrate firebending, but they did not seem interested.

After that, there was more talking. The witches excused themselves – I watched them take branches of pine – cloud-pine, they called it – and take off to be in the air above the house, where they circled closely together, in council. When the Aurora Borealis flared in the sky they flew towards it. I went upstairs to my room to wait for them, and to watch the Aurora.

I had never seen an Aurora Borealis before, except on the boat coming up North. I relished the chance to see it up closer. Since then I've learned that an identical phenomenon occurs in the Northern and Southern Water Tribes of this world. It's truly a magnificent sight – fire in the sky, without source or heat. Imagine the bender who could control that fire! Perhaps only the Avatar possibly could.

But while I was watching the Aurora, studying it with delight, I noticed something strange. I could see, gradually, the shape of a city emerge, as though seen through a heavy veil, fluttering in the sky. I squinted against the light – there, wasn't that the roof of the Grand Palace of Ba Sing Se? Was that a way for me to get back to my home? I strained to see better. I wondered if lightning might not open a pathway, and immediately my fingers took the required position and I started breathing deeply.

I could feel and see the lightning waking up in my fingers. I brought my fingers together and set my eyes on the Palace roof –

And I felt a warm hand on my shoulder. I was not surprised enough to lose control, but the lightning in my hands flared into fire and died out.

I turned around. Celsia Perrenia, the oldest queen, was standing there. She fixed me with her golden eyes and said, "You will need watching."

I shrugged off her hand. "I'm not a child."

"No. You are not a child. You are just barely a woman. And you are even more dangerous that way." Her face became rather inquiring, and she leaned closer to look at me.

"What are you looking at?" I demanded.

"You are with child," she said.

I was stunned. She said something else but I interrupted her by crying, "What? That's impossible! I'm not even married!"

I heard a laugh high above me. I looked up. Layla Kamar was laughing at me. The other witches were perched on the roof, and all were smiling. I snarled and clenched my hands into the lightning-bending form. I took aim, but again Celsia Perrenia stopped me. She threw her cloud pine branch over my head and tightened it against my throat. I sent a harmless crack of lightning five feet away from Layla Kamar.

"_No one_ laughs at me," I spat.

Celsia Perrenia touched my throat – not in a threatening gesture, but a restraining one. "Your power is in your breath. You must be watched. You will live with me and my clan. You will be our guest, but I warn you –" She turned me around to face her. "If you attack one of my sisters unprovoked, or take a life without cause, you shall deal with me personally."

"How many sisters do you have?"

"_They_ are all my sisters," she said, nodding to the other witches on the roof. "Every witch in my clan is my sister. Any of the witches in any of their clans is my sister."

"Good Agni, what a family," I muttered.

"They are _mine_," Celsia said. "And you shall live with them. And you shall not start a war."

"I shall help you," Tenna Huang said, leaping lightly down onto the balcony to be on my other side. I was surrounded by the glittering eyes of witches, and knew it would be useless to resist.

That's enough for today, I think.


	4. The Child

Azula and her Daughter

By Vifetoile

This is a companion piece to my other story, 'Marisa and her Mother,' which can be found on my profile. Thank you for reading! More chapters to come.

Basically, this came about as a very strange idea that I had that would not let me alone. Ever. Until I wrote it down and wrote it out. I own neither Azula, nor her world, nor the world of Lyra's Oxford, but then, I never pretended to.

The Child

Today I talk about my life with the witches. It was a strange time, where I was isolated from the rest of humanity, a new member of a tightly knit family, but also an outsider. I always had to rely on another witch's sympathy for food and clothing and shelter, although these were never given with the slightest trace of resentment. I was able to give lessons, too – some witches, relatively young ones, wanted to know more about the land of China, and the Chinese language. I spoke vaguely about 'China,' but taught them my language as well as I could. I was glad that I could hold something over them, when they had so many advantages over me.

The witches flew about in the air, swam in the water, and walked on the land wearing nothing but their black silk rags (which I admit, they wore well), while I had to bundle up in the thickest furs to keep from freezing to death. They spoke of centuries like they had been weeks. When in meetings, every witch could speak without penalty, even I. This astounded me. But this was the most impossible thing about their world: _they had no sense of honor_.

When I realized this, I was stunned. One witch had flown back into camp after having dallied on a ship with a "gyptian," and related a story of how a gyptian woman had called her an "evil slut of the air." She had told this and _laughed_, imitating the gyptian woman's accent.

I was piqued. I demanded, "Did you shoot her for that? Will you curse her?"

The witch turned to me, her smile still alive on her face, and said, "Of course not."

I pressed her further, and she never once seemed to see my logic that her insult should be avenged. She said she was not harmed at all by the slur, and was baffled at my wish for retaliation, saying that although the gyptian woman was thoughtless to have said so, to harm her when she had done no wrong, and in fact had a young child, would be cruel.

I stormed off, angry, frustrated, and unable to understand.

Tenna Huang found me out and explained to me their philosophy, where the human word 'honor' had no meaning. I was baffled and I told her so. She said that in time I would come to understand, and that I should not get too angry, for it might damage my child.

That was the most vexing part about my stay with the witches. As much as I tried to deny it, my body was changing. I became insatiably hungry, and felt like I had to eat constantly. I craved meat like I never had before. Some foods would make me sick, and it would take my greatest willpower to overcome nausea in the morning. And I hated my weight gain.

I will give Tenna Huang credit where credit is due. She informed me briskly that what I was going through was perfectly natural in childbearing. She was my physician for that entire time, noting wryly that she had had 'many' children (she would never say exactly how much) and knew something of the art of mothering.

She did not ask me the name of the father. However, Celsia Perennia did ask me, quietly, out of earshot of the other witches. She said that it was important because, should my child be a son, he would be placed with his father.

I opposed her right away, saying that no son of mine should be taken away from me. I would take him back to my home world.

She informed me that it is the way of witches. I told her I was not a witch, thank you, and my child would not have to live by those laws.

She did not push me. However, a few days later I sent for her, and told her quietly that the only man with whom I had shared myself was a priest living in the English-speaking land, named Father Marius. She nodded, and said that that was all she needed to know.

I did not like being pregnant. And no matter how much the witches respected me, I did not like living in the cold.

But in the months before I had to rest, I had to apply myself. The witches did not exactly resent my staying with them, but I was expected to earn my keep. Having been a princess, even a Fire Lord, before, had no meaning to them. So various witches gave me lessons, with as little resentment as they had fed and sheltered and clothed me.

I learned how to shoot a bow and arrow in their style, how to hunt deer, rabbit, and elk, how to find herbs and other nutritious plants on the tundra and in the forests. I learned how to survive in the cold. I hid my firebending from the witches as carefully as I could, except for Tenna Huang and Celsia Perennia. In order to complete this charade, I condescended to learn how to cook with fire. I had already mastered a crude version of that, but they made me cook throughout a given piece of meat, and spice it a little. I admit, that was worth learning.

I learned their history and mythology – which was more barbaric and strange than what Father Marius had taught me, but still interesting in its own way. They taught me the movements of the stars and planets, and how to use them to direct my course. Every night before I slept I would watch the Aurora and the cities that flickered through its veil – the cities would change from time to time, and sometimes I would see my own home world through the fantastic colors. Then, I would brush away any tears that might form – they would freeze on my face.

I would pray humbly to Agni to make my child a firebender. If you must, I would urge then give my child a dæmon. But let him bend fire.

At least among the witches I was not made to feel an outsider for my lack of a dæmon. Many of the witches – maybe not most, but many – lived with their dæmons far away for days or weeks at a time. Their dæmons, I noticed, were always bird-shaped. Most of the witches at first did not know that I had no dæmon, or even that I had come from another world. However, they did know that I was not related to any of the witches, that I was living with them by the grace of Celsia Perennia, and that the child I carried (the child that I felt made me more wretched by the day) would be my first.

One day I awoke and felt that – I could not say how, but I felt somehow that my time was very near. I was evidently not the only one, because a few witches, including Tenna Huang, were watching me carefully. Finally Tenna said, "It will be today."

"What?" I asked, dreading the answer.

"The birthing. You will go into the dens."

The dens. Of course. These barbaric witches _would_ give birth in dens and in burrows, like animals.

"Lead the way," I grumbled.

Once they had heaved me to my feet, I was led to a small opening in the ground that I had not entered before. The opening was covered with leaves and branches. There was a small stair down. There was a series of tunnels connecting different chambers. All the chambers had some ventilation and a large, roaring fire, with a cauldron of water, on the inside. I was seated in a chamber all to myself.

I don't need to go into the details of the birthing. It hurt. It took far too long. When the contractions were at their worst, I found myself breathing fire, just to relieve some of my agony. This – did not please my midwives. Fortunately none of them were in the way of my fire, and knew enough to stay out of my way when my labor pains returned.

The only thing that kept me going was the prayer, that which all good Fire Nation women breathe on their childbeds: _"Powerful Agni, Mighty Sun, grant my child your gift. Grant him fire in his hands, flame in his heart and eyes."_ I prayed that over and over again, in my heart and under my breath.

The child slipped out of me – so quickly it surprised me, to be honest. I collapsed as soon as I could, and wanted to sleep, but Tenna Huang pressed the baby into my arms and bade me nurse it. I… I could not resist her voice when she spoke like that, and when I was so weak. I don't need to go into further details on that.

I felt like I was in a fog. I asked Tenna, "Is it a boy?"

She smiled at me and said, "No. It is a beautiful, healthy little girl."

And I looked into the face of my daughter.

Beautiful? No. She was red and wrinkly and scrunched together. But there was strength in her screams, and she – she _drank_ with gusto and appetite. I took her hand in my fingers – such a tiny hand! – and studied it. It was perfectly formed, down to the little fingernails. Those were the hands of a future queen, I could see it.

I found myself smiling, marveling at how perfectly she was formed – and realizing that she was, in fact, a small thing that had come out of _me_ – whose existence and self were entirely derived from me. It was a strange idea, but not altogether unpleasant.

However, I was not entirely at ease. I had had a conviction for some time, an ultimatum of which I was certain down to my bones: _Either_ my child would have a dæmon, _or_ she would be a firebender. She would not possibly be both. And she would have to be one or the other.

I was to stay in the birthing den for seven days, at which point I would name my child, and we would both come out into the light.

I considered what I would name her. Ursa? No. Out of the question. Perhaps I should name her after my father. Oza was the accepted feminine form of Ozai, but somehow she didn't quite strike me as a little Oza.

Sozila, for my ancestor of the comet's fame? Zyll, the first Avatar to be a Sun Warrior? I tested all these names on her, whispering to her sleeping face, but none of them quite seemed to suit.

I admit… I even thought of Mai or Ty Lee. But I would not let my child start out life with their names.

I decided to sleep on the matter, and I did, curled up in furs with my child in my arms. For the first time in months, I felt properly warm.

When I awoke, Celsia Perennia and Tenna Huang were with me in the chamber. They had been watching my child and I. Celsia asked to see her. I handed her over and she woke up and started to cry. (I wondered how long it would be until she stopped crying.) While they inspected her, I waited, taking the chance to walk around a bit in the confined space. I heard Celsia proclaim my daughter very healthy (of course she would be, she was _my_ daughter) and then I heard Tenna say, "And there's her little dæmon shaping already!"

I spun around and marched over to see what she meant. She pointed out a small shadow that was tucked under my child's chin – a flickering little thing that could hardly be seen unless you knew you were looking for it – vague, dark, with little gold flecks here and there.

"She is a very lovely child," Celsia Perennia said soothingly – and I turned my back to them. I thought I could hear Celsia say, "I see she has much of her mother in her." At those words I stormed out of the den and into another, empty one where the fire was not lit.

I bent a fire into the pit with what little wood there was and I spent my anger and energy in making it grow vaster and more demanding, until I myself could barely breathe. Then I admit, I fell against the wall and wept.

For what had been my suffering, for what had been my alienation from all that I knew and loved and relied on? I could not even give birth to a child who would bear my likeness. The fire within me was not strong enough to overcome the law of the dæmon. And my child would have a dæmon while I would not.

At that moment I would have given anything, including the brat crying in the next chamber, to have been back in my own world.

Eventually I returned to Celsia, Tenna, and my brat. Celsia had gotten the baby to stop crying, but she held her out to me. "She's hungry," she said.

I took the child and reluctantly began to feed her. Celsia watched me. She said, "You are angry. Angry at the child. Why?"

I did not answer. She pressed on,

"I heard you have been asking in disbelief that witches have no code of honor."

"I just find it hard to believe," I stated flatly.

"It would perhaps be more accurate to say – I speak as someone with much experience – that our honor is different than that of humans'. True, there is much we will not resent, but there is also much we will not forgive. In that way," and I think she smiled, "You are more witch-like than you realize. It was good that you came to stay with us."

"As you say."

"But, Azula, we do not bear grudges or anger against children, especially not the newly born. Look at your little girl. She loves and trusts you right now with everything. How can you bear her hatred?"

I looked. The baby certainly didn't seem grateful, just rather pleased with herself after her gluttonous feeding.

"Is it anger against her father that leads you to this feeling?"

I did not answer. It would be a lie to say that I had not thought of Marius in months. I had. He was frequently in my thoughts – and my dreams. I had cursed him roundly as I gave birth. Slowly I answered, "No. I have moved past hating him."

"Good."

She said nothing else. After a while the silence became so oppressive that I had to blurt out, "I hate her dæmon."

Celsia and Tenna were shocked. I was glad that I had shocked them, but I didn't show it. I couldn't.

"This child is not mine. Her dæmon proves it. She slipped out of my body but she has nothing in common with me. Nothing! I thought while I was suffering that I could at least enjoy the opportunity to teach a young Firebender, to pass on my art. But she will not bend fire. She is not worthy to be a princess of the Fire Nation. But she belongs to this world. She can never come with me back to my own."

Celsia was quiet for a time, then she said, "You are right, she will never go back with you to your world. If you wish, we can take her in, and she will be raised as a witch."

I drew my baby closer to me. "I didn't say that."

"You are a bundle of contradictions, Azula," Tenna observed dryly.

I disdained to answer. Celsia clasped her hands over her knees and said, "In a few days we shall bring your child out of the dens and onto the tundra, and her name shall be presented."

"I haven't decided what to name her," I said.

"I'm sure you shall find the right name. Also I will give you her dæmon's name."

I turned to her, affronted. "_You_ will give me her dæmon's name? And where will you draw it from?"

Her face was impassive. "From the sky, from the aurora, from the flowers on the tundra and the entrails of a marten. I shall divine it as I would divine the name of my own great-granddaughter's dæmon."

"No, you shall not." A new realization had occurred to me. "She is still my child, and even if I do not understand her dæmon, she owes every bit of her life to me. I will name the dæmon."

"And what shall you name him?"

"Ozai," I answered at once.

Celsia and Tenna looked at each other. "Ozai is…" Tenna began.

"The name of my father. The name of a king. And she shall bear it as well."

"Fine, then. But you shall let me give her the name of her human part."

"I shall let you choose a name, and approve it if I like it."

Celsia's brow darkened. "You have fire in your heart, Azula, but you are as inflexible as rock and raw iron. Our traditions, however, are as inexorable as the permafrost and the cold earth beneath it. One shall have to bend, or the other."

"So you say," I replied, looking her in the eye. "I have a request. May I come down here to sleep with my child, again, even after she has been presented? It is warm down here. I fear that she would freeze in the air above."

"Of course you may come down here as often as you like with your baby." Tenna inclined her head gracefully. "As long as you do not steal from or harm another mother or child."

"Now why would I ever want to do that?" I asked, cradling my child before she started to cry again.

The day before I was due to present my child, I was visited again by Celsia Perennia. She spoke rather coolly to me. "I have found a name for your daughter."

"What is that?"

"Her name is Marisa."

"Marisa?" I repeated. "What sort of a name is that?"

"It is the name of her father, Marius, in the feminine mold. That way all the world shall know…"

"Whose daughter she is," I finished, my eyes bright. "Yes! And she will be a living mark of his guilt… yes! That's wonderful! That's perfect!"

Celsia Perennia gave me a strange look. "I'm not sure that your enthusiasm is comforting."

"Oh, shut up. Marisa is a beautiful name. Marisa she shall be."


	5. The Kept Woman

Azula and her Daughter

By Vifetoile

The Kept Woman

I spent several days in the cave, even after my daughter was presented. It was nice and warm down there. When I surfaced at last, I found that the camp was deserted. However, there was a bird dæmon there – a fairy bluebird, which I recognized as being Tenna Huang's dæmon. He flew towards me and informed me coolly that there was a witch's council happening some miles away. I demanded to know why I hadn't been invited. The dæmon, who was a little miffed, said it had been an emergency council and I had been excused on account of my child.

I huffed. The dæmon, Drust, flapped his wings at me in return. "There's no use being angry with me. I have to return to check on –"

"Stay a minute!" I called. "Am I being discussed at this so-secret council?"

He stayed on the rock before me a moment before answering, "Yes, and Tenna wanted you to be there to hear it. But she was overruled by the other witches. Not all clans are equally democratic, you see."

"Will you let me know what their decision is?"

"You will know soon enough!" He replied as he took off and flew away. He seemed to be in something of an embarrassed hurry, and when I turned around I saw why. A man had entered the camp.

He was an explorer type. He was thin and young and clearly quite rich, and did not know what to make of a young, dæmonless woman standing before him, alone on the tundra, with a child. He watched Drust fly away, and then looked at me, and I realized he thought that Drust was my dæmon. He slowly started to approach me, his snowshoes making the trek even more difficult. His own dæmon, a terrier, stayed behind him, always in a crouch.

I stayed where I was and watched him. I did not move or speak, but let the sunlight of the tundra and the wind do what it would to my appearance. I held little Marisa close to me but kept her face away from him.

Eventually, he approached. He spoke to me in a tone of some wonderment at first in some language I didn't recognize. I shook my head. He tried another. Finally he hit English.

I responded, slowly, making my English sound worse than it really was. His first question was, "Are you a witch?"

And I answered, "Yes, I am witch."

"How is it your dæmon could fly away from you so far?"

"That is the power of the witches of the north. I am sending him far away, to bear a message of war to another witch who has slighted me."

He gestured rather awkwardly to Marisa.

I told him she was not my own child, but that a spirit of a thunderbolt had given its own child to me in a human shape. I was to raise her as her godmother, and would not be parted from her. He believed me. The sap!

He asked me many more questions. I told the truth where I knew it and where it benefited me, and lied when I had to. In an hour I had the man in the palm of my hand – I could tell because his dæmon relaxed and began to approach me freely.

I learned he had spent a month in the Arctic but was wrapping up his tour and preparing to return home, but he had wanted to see a camp of witches before he left.

I asked, shyly, about his home country. He told me a bit. I said I would love to see it. He invited me to join his expedition homeward. I accepted, on the conditions that he never demand to see my dæmon, for, I explained, that was a deadly insult to a witch, and that the thunder-child be allowed to stay with me no matter what. He accepted both conditions.

By the time the sun was setting, I and my daughter were sitting in style in a dogsled, with furs heaped upon us both, and with two sullen Tartars – I thought of them as Water Tribesmen, because it amused me – obeying every command of my latest conquest, whose name, I had discovered, was Wikels. A nice name.

I observed that Wikels was trying to start a fire by himself, so I kindly obliged to start one for him. He was duly impressed, as were the barbarian servants. They shared their food with me, and I spoke little. I was too busy looking forward to the future. We would be returning to warm lands, cities and servants. We were going South. I had studied maps with Father Marius, and with Wikels' money (and he clearly had plenty of it) I should be able to find England easily, and the window again, and return to the Fire Nation, with Marisa.

It all looked so simple to me.

That night, Drust, Tenna Huang's dæmon, came back to me. He could speak Chinese as well as I, and we spoke in Chinese so as to keep Wikels and his servants in the dark. Drust was astounded at what I was doing. However, he did not object outright or tell me I had to return. He merely said, "You have never been a real witch, only our guest. We have honored you as such, and now you have departed. I shall relay this back to Tenna." He flew away, and I had thus satisfied all the men there that I had a perfectly normal dæmon like anyone else's.

I slept that night in the freshly skinned furs, with my baby in my arms – almost properly warm. However, I woke in the middle of the night. The aurora borealis was blazing above, and what looked like an entire tribe of witches was soaring overhead, coming down towards me. The sound of their war cries woke up Wikels and the servants.

The leader was a queen that I did not recognize. Her falcon dæmon swooped around her. She lowered her bow (their bows are also used to help them fly) and told me, in Chinese, that they had come to destroy me, as I was an interloper from another world. They would take my child and raise her as a witch to avoid my corruption.

The witch started to say her name and declare her tribe, but I didn't exactly notice. I was instead concentrating on putting down my baby in the furs, and then shooting the witch with lightning.

Her dæmon vanished in an instant. She landed on the snow, smoking slightly, and did not move.

The other witches raised their bows (I admit, I admire the witches for their adaptability to adverse situations).

I told the servants to watch the baby and guard her with their lives. Then I surveyed my own situation.

I was outnumbered by approximately thirty to one, out of shape, and out of practice.

However, I also had been craving a good fight for _ages_.

I ran into the snow field, their arrows following me all the way, to lead them away from the sled. When an arrow almost hit my face, I averted it with a blast of fire. I made a shield of fire that expanded around me until it hit the witches themselves. Their silks caught aflame, and their bows cracked and burned to cinders. Their magic died, and they fell to the snow.

Some had fallen too far and too sharply, and they did not rise. But plenty more survived and charged towards me.

Some of them had their dæmons flying above, even trying to attack me. I struck at them with lightning. The dæmons vanished and the women collapsed at once. I didn't think about it more than that.

My muscles, atrophied as they were, remembered the way to fight and to firebend. With fire, with lightning, and with my own technique – so infinitely advanced from those barbaric witches! – I soon had them all on the ground around me, barely recognizable from their burns. I smiled. Witches never retreat.

Another witch would have taken from each one a trophy, the crown of flowers that sat in the hair of every witch. For every witch, her crown still bloomed even as her scalp smoked. I was not a witch. However, I took each one and sauntered back to the sled.

I held the crowns in my lap, along with my baby. I let her grip them in her clumsy little hand. "This is your mother," I whispered, "This is the power of which I am capable. This is the power of which you will be capable. One day, my daughter."

I sailed across the sea with Wikels and moved in with him. As soon as I could get a map I asked him where we were. He pointed out a small landlocked country that lay very far from England. However, I had time to wait. I settled down into my new life as Wikels' mistress.

I had one surprise. Two nights after I was moved in, I entered my private suite to find Tenna Huang lounging in the window. She was clearly ill at ease, but she asked me if this was my certain path.

I answered that it was.

She nodded and said she would not stop me. But she gave me a small flower from her crown – a little bloom like a forget-me-not – and told me to use it to call on her if I ever had need.

I took it with a stiff thank-you, and she left. I then returned to enjoy my new life.

At first the novelty was incredible - novelty and familiarity. At last, I had a house, hot water again on demand, and lamps, and beds, and curtains. Fine silk clothes were fitted to my size. Servants catered to my every whim, with fear and awe becoming to a witch of the North. And my Marisa was fitted in the most adorable outfits – I saw to that, and a nurse to soothe in her tantrum moments. I had a whole suite of rooms to myself, and soon gathered that Wikels was very rich.

My sitting room had a glass case full of porcelain. Little figures like "Chinese" peasants were painted on the porcelain – poorly. I had my servants take the plates out (most of them) and I replaced them with the crowns I had taken from the witches. They had begun to wilt, but I did not care. Each one had its place, and I displayed them proudly.

There were books in English. I found a book on China and read it as much as I could. I learned much; however, on the first good and sunny day I asked Wikels if he would take me out to explore the city.

He would not.

I knew better than to push him at the moment. He let me wander freely in his gardens, but it soon became clear to me that I was not to leave the house until he had judged the time to be right.

So I was still a prisoner, like I had been with Marius.

I might have died of boredom in a year if it weren't for the fact that Wikels was not only rich, he was a member of a rich and powerful family

I devoted myself to studying the economics of the world he lived in, and the influence of his family, their 'stocks' and investments. Within a month I felt confident enough to coyly advise him in casual moments. After two months he was coming to me for counsel. In three it had become a regular part of our schedule. I always was a fast learner.

A few years passed in this manner. While I helped Wikels become even more rich and more prosperous, I watched my daughter grow up. I made sure she received only the best tutors, though few tutors would have anything to do with me, strange as I was. In the evenings I became her tutor, teaching her my language, the history of the Fire Nation, and the proud heritage of which she was a part. I did my best not to resent her inability to firebend. She learned very quickly, and I became proud of her and her cleverness. Her dæmon could change shape, I noticed. Father Marius had told me that this was typical of children. He would alter with her moods, but his shape was always inventive and active.

Wikels did take me out on occasion – to the theater, to balls, to tour the city – but we never stayed out long, or mingled much in other's company. I reflected that this was just as well; I didn't want the vapid, idiotic crowd surrounding me.

To bulwark myself against Wikels' suspicion, I told him that the rules regarding witches and their dæmons were strict and complicated, especially to outsiders. I said that because my dæmon had been seen by men, he would be in exile apart from me for a year. When a year was almost up, I told him that he must never watch me hold counsel with my dæmon, which would happen twice yearly, at Midsummer and Midwinter, at midnight.

We often took vaunts to the countryside – to mountains and plains and forests where we could explore freely. There little Marisa and I enjoyed to go, while Wikels stayed at the lodge, on account of his delicate health. I didn't mind. I rather enjoyed being away from him for long stretches, just me and my daughter.

There's an English word that lacks an equivalent in our own tongue: "Darling." It's got a slightly… childish connotation. It means… I guess the closest word we have is "cherished." There's also a connotation of "favorite." Or maybe "spoiled." But "cherished" covers a lot of its meaning.

I was very surprised to find, one day, that little Marisa had become my darling – with her shapeshifting other face, and her dark hair and gold eyes like my own. She did take after me, but a certain cast to her nose made her resemble Marius just slightly. I could tell she was going to be very beautiful, and I was proud of her. And I was proud of her cleverness. Already she had a way of faking innocence to make the palace cook give her little sweets between meals, and of pleading exhaustion to make the most jaded tutor give her whatever breaks she wanted.

My own darling little liar.

I always celebrated her birthday on the last day of May. I knew it wasn't accurate, but it was the approximate date of when she had been planted in me – in me! This beautiful and cunning child came from _me!_ – and it was a good time of year. Summer would be near, flowers would be everywhere, and the sun would be giving her strength, just as it strengthened me.

Sometimes, watching her, I would wonder what had become of Father Marius. If he should ever meet her. I wondered what kind of life she would have when she was a little older, and what kind of lady she would be.

All my wonderings were cut short, however, around Marisa's seventh birthday.

I had then been in that world for eight years, and no longer felt as strong as I once had. I had told Marisa stories about my world since she was a baby: now I decided it was time to teach her firebending. Our lessons were clandestine, in the country at night, when no one was around to see.

No matter how much she practiced the positions, she could not summon fire from within her. I tried to be patient. I really did. However, one night it was raining and threatening lightning. I wondered if, being a child of two worlds, her bending might express itself in unusual ways.

So I decided to show her lightning, to bring lightning close to her and see if I could draw it out from her little hands. I waited for a stormy night, and when one came, I took her out into its wild heart, and brought the lightning to me.

She was brave, yes – she did not flinch at the lightning that I shot from my hands, but when I tried to open the lightning to her, she shrank back, clutching her dæmon (a cat at that moment) in her arms. I realized that if she was to meet with lightning, all that it would do would burn her into ashes. She was eminently practical: she wanted to go inside. So eventually I gave in (children have a way of making women weak). Through the rain and wind we trudged back to our chateau in silence. I handed her off at once for her bath, but I stayed in my own suite, watching the fire and thinking. And thinking. And thinking.

At around two in the morning I moved into my own room. I looked into my mirror for a long time.

Then a falcon flew in through the window and perched on my case full of witch-crowns. It was Wealtha.

Then I saw Father Marius walking into my suite. He said, in Chinese, that he had come to take Marisa away from me. I said he could not. He said he had power on his side, and then Tenna Huang flew into the window. I started and began to scream at them. I told them they would never take my daughter away from me. In my anger I firebended at both of them – but all I managed to do was melt the mirror into a shapeless lump.

Servants came in and tried to restrain me. I shot fire at all of them. Even Wikels did not dare come near me. Only when Marisa entered my chamber did I calm.

I gathered her up into my arms and began to shiver with relief. And I couldn't stop shivering. I was suddenly incredibly cold, and then I fainted.


	6. The Alethiometrist

Azula and her Daughter

By Vifetoile

The Alethiometrist

I don't recall much of the next three weeks. I was sick with a terrible fever, and am told I nearly died. Most of the time weakness and insane temperatures devoured me. Sometimes I would hallucinate. Sometimes I would try to talk to the hallucinations. Or attack them. Eventually the doctor attending to me decided I needed to be tranquilized.

That was how I became introduced to, and then addicted to, a very strange substance called opium.

By the time I finally recovered – and my recovery was made even slower by the dragging weight that the opium addiction took on my health – things had taken a turn for the worse.

Without my advice, Wikels had taken an economic risk that had backfired. He had lost a considerable amount of his fortune – though my own previous investments had made sure that we were at least secure for the time being. Of course, he blamed me for his devastation.

That's why I thought he was angry at me at first. But he and his dæmon constantly looked at me with fear. Finally, from something one of the servants had said, I figured out why.

No matter who I was, no matter what the laws were regarding dæmons for witches, there was no way that I would be in such pain, and so close to death, and that my dæmon, wherever he was, would not rush to my side to be with me in my pain.

Thus he had deduced that I had no dæmon.

This after having kept me as his mistress for only seven years. What a bright man.

He informed me soberly that as soon as I was strong enough to travel, I would be sent to Geneva, to be tried before the Magisterium as a consorter of demons and a monster.

I wondered, turning to the side, if this would not have come about had he not decided to blame me for his economic blunder.

At that point Wikels added that Marisa would be coming with me, to face similar charges, as he no longer wanted to have the child of a succubus in the house.

I nodded, and said nothing more.

The next day our journey began. I was still weak; sometimes my fever would return, and every day I took a growing dose of opium. So I don't remember much of the train ride to Geneva, although Marisa enjoyed it. From the very start men in the uniform of the Magisterium, and even a few monks accompanied us.

The Magisterium, understand, is the great religious organization that I believe to be the main power on that world, at least in the civilized parts of it. Father Marius was a very low-ranking member, from what I remembered, and I wondered if I would see him there.

My actual trial was delayed a couple of days until I was strong enough to represent myself. I would not have one of their cursed prattling priests representing me.

That's… quite enough for the day. I'll return to this tomorrow.

… It has been a week since I resumed this narrative. This is more difficult than I had thought.

Every night, the priests would pray over me in the name of St. Dymphna, patroness of the insane. I did not contradict them. I needed to save my strength and plan.

I could speak English well enough to defend myself, but it was clear that there was nothing I could exactly do. At the first chance I got, I hounded the young nun who was my nurse and made her tell me the Church's position on things such as the existence of other worlds. This is what I gathered from her:

If I were to say that I came from another world, I would probably be executed on the spot. After all, there were supposed to be only two other worlds, heaven and hell, and I was clearly not heavenly.

If I were to say that I was a genuine witch, I would probably be imprisoned for an indefinite number of years – why should a witch think anything of fifty years in prison, when a witch might live many centuries, after all?

If I were to try and say I was innocent and a native of this world, I would probably be imprisoned for insanity. Most other possibilities also ended in insanity and imprisonment.

A nice bind.

I tried to find out what would happen to Marisa, but the nun could not help me, for there was so little precedent of that sort.

I grew strong enough to face the day of my trial.

I sat before my mirror and looked at myself. All I had to wear was the same coarse black as the nuns. I was wasted and pale from my long illness, only a ghost of my former beauty. I could feel the opium craving taking me over again. And for the first time, I realized that I could not live much longer. Every hour was wearing me down. No matter how much sunlight I absorbed, this world was driving me away – if I could not be driven back through the old window, I would be driven to death.

For the first time, I had to hope that other people might – perhaps – save me.

Would Father Marius return to me? What had I given him? Pleasure and guilt. Would he save me? I could not see a reason why.

What about Tenna Huang and Celestia Perennia? They were supposed to be concerned for my welfare. But I hadn't seen a witch in years. Then again, just because you don't see a witch doesn't mean that they aren't watching. Witches are loyal unto death… but then again, I thought Mai and Ty Lee would be loyal unto death too.

For a long time I lost myself in thinking of my life before the window. Days on the beach, in the forests, on the open sea. Under the healthy sun, surrounded by my own language. Strolling in the palace of the Fire Lords with pride, not the parasite and prisoner of a weak man, but a princess. When was the last time I had explored with wild abandon?

… oh, yes, when I found the window.

I could see and hear those two by me, as we sipped tea, painted each other up to be Kyoshi warriors – everything. Mai and Zuko were married by now. She may have had children. Even Ty Lee might be married. What became of my father? What became of my mother? What did she look like now?

A shock went through me as I realized she might just resemble the skeleton in the mirror before me. I sunk onto my arms.

I love Zuko more than I fear you.

They threw me away. So I threw them away. I cast away everyone and everything for – for what? The better part of a decade spent in a strange land, a whore, an unwilling mother, an unwelcome guest, everywhere I go.

Well, I had a daughter worth being proud of. This time I forgot to add the usual appellation "even if not a firebender."

Then I remembered the flower that Tenna Huang had given to me. I had kept it in a small pouch along with a few other items, and hadn't thought of using it in years. It had never wilted after all this time. I held it out – a tiny blue flower between my two fingers. I said, in Chinese,

"Tenna Huang, I, Azula of the Fire Nation, call on you now. My need is great. I see no hope. If you have any care or loyalty towards me or my daughter, then heed this message."

There. I had sent out the call for aid, to remind her of her oath. I took a deep breath, and then carefully arranged my hair in the style befitting a lady of the Fire Nation. It was the best I could do, but I was satisfied.

I took another look at the opium pipe by my side, and put it away, out of sight. Even though I began to shiver when I was standing up, I would not take it.

As I was led out the door I saw Marisa in the corner. There were no toys for her to play with, but she was reading a Bible. Even Ozai was perched on her shoulder, following the words closely. My heart sank.

I walked over to her, and put my hand on her head. She looked up at me, and I opened my mouth, but could find no words. I looked into her eyes – a brilliant gold, like mine – and said, "I will be back soon."

She nodded, but didn't smile. She was a good child, without any affectation. She knew she could be herself with me.

I saw that someone had tied her hair in red ribbons. I asked if I could have one of her ribbons. She took off her right-hand ribbon at once and tucked it into my hand. I thanked her, and left her there with her Bible.

When I reached the final door to the hallway, there was a mirror by the door. I paused to work the red ribbon into my hair, to emphasize its style. When I was finished, I put my hands on the door and pushed it open. There, four soldiers were waiting for me.

Also standing there was a large, older priest I did not recognize, with a large, dark bird for a dæmon.

"Take me to the judge," I commanded.

"As you wish," said the priest. He spoke in Chinese.

I stared at him and suddenly recognized him.

Father Marius.

He had changed. Long suffering in spirit had changed him almost as much as my illness had changed me. There was a certain amount of shame in his eyes. Even Wealtheow looked like she'd flown through a storm. But his eyes, as blue as ever, looked into mine like they could see straight through my lies. I stared right back, for once in my life speechless.

Father Marius began to lead the procession – an escort fit for a princess – to the trial. The Magisterium City was huge; it took us a long time to get to the actual courtroom. We had plenty of time to talk. And Father Marius began by saying, in Chinese,

"A fine day for a reunion, Azula."

I answered back. "What are you doing here?"

"I had to come. I received an epistle that told all the important happenings and rulings of the Magisterium. When I heard that you were on trial – it was my duty by God to see to it that you have a fair trial."

"A fair trial, _ha_. You blame me for making you fall." Nothing like hitting a nerve. "If you want anything from me you want my bed again, don't you? Well, you had better keep dreaming."

He did not answer for a time, but then said something in Latin.

"And what does that mean?"

"Evil to him that thinks evil."

I sniffed. "You and your moralizing."

"I'm a little surprised at you, Azula. You used to be so subtle and clever. Now you've descended to low insults and base insinuations."

"I'm not insinuating, I'm –"

"That's exactly my point."

I disdained to reply.

"I have connections in these walls. I know that you've been getting weaker. Sicker. Even your wit isn't what it once was."

"I am exactly what I once was."

"Right. And so am I."

I glared at him. I could not believe the way this was going. "Then if we've both changed so much, what is there for you to find here?"

"I mean it. You are not going to get a fair trial. I mean to help you as much as I can."

He sounded sincere, but I knew he was good at manipulation. "You don't want me to expose you." The way his face darkened, I knew I had him. "Noble Father Marius, who lived through years of journeying in China without a single impure thought – to be taken in at home by a slip of a heathen girl, practically a child, with no Christian upbringing, nor even a dæmon. How shocking!"

He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Wealtheaow looked at me and I stared straight back. Then she began to circle overhead, as if on the lookout for any other priests who might understand our talk.

"You want to say that it means nothing to you. You want to say that you believe in your Christ to save you. But you do not believe in the faith of your fellow priests. You know what they'll do to you. Your reputation will be worth less than the meanest dog's. It means everything to you."

His voice was choked. "You cannot say it – you cannot do that to me. It will destroy me. It has been destroying me."

"You brought it on yourself, didn't you?"

"Listen, Azula! I saved your life. I let you go free out of Christian mercy. I let you go where you would. I should have turned you over to the Magisterium right then and there. But I gave you freedom. In payment for that, won't you give me my honor?"

Honor. He'd chosen the right word. I paused. "Your honor is more than your mere reputation."

He bowed his head. "I… I used the wrong word. My honor was destroyed years ago, from the first moment I touched you after the May Dance."

"Yes."

"You can…" I paused. He glanced up at me. "You destroyed your own honor. Yes, I helped you. But I can help you restore it as well."

"How?"

"Let us make a deal."

"What sort of deal?"

"Good question. It is this: if I do not mention you anywhere in my trial…"

"No."

"What?"

"You will have to do that."

"How do you know? You know how well I lie."

"Indeed I do, but – St. Mary help me, I can't believe I forgot…"

"What?"

"That is the main item I wanted to tell you. You _must not lie_ during this trial."

"_What_? Are you insane? I will be – "

"I know what will happen to you if you are found guilty. But while, if you tell the select truth, you may receive something less than a death sentence, you _will_ call the wrath of the Church if you lie under oath."

"Ha. How will they know that I lie?"

"Because they have a truth-teller waiting for you."

I stared. "Like a fortuneteller? You people seem a little too skeptical for that nonsense…"

"Not any clairvoyant. They summoned Sister Maria Pancrazio from Rome for the sole purpose of knowing if you are telling the truth."

"How does she know? Is she blind? I knew a blind girl who fancied herself a living lie detector, and I could fool _her_."

"She does not rely on her own senses. She is able to read the alethiometer."

"… the what?"

"The alethiometer. The name means 'measurer of truth.' It is a rare and strange instrument. There are symbols painted on it, and needles – I do not know, but the angels of God move the needles, and the reader who can interpret the signs can know anything in the world, past or present."

"And Sister Maria Pancrazio can read it?"

"She is the best reader that the Magisterium possesses."

"And it always tells the truth?"

"Yes."

"Even the truth of another universe?"

"I expect so, yes."

"So it will know if I am lying?"

"Yes."

"… God damn it." I said that in English.

"Do not blaspheme," he answered in English. Then in Chinese, "I can understand your frustration."

"So… the places I've been and the people I've met, will all be laid bare."

"Yes."

I thought. "So I am forced to mention that I met you."

"Yes… exactly."

"But I can word my answer so that we only ever were a teacher and a student… your reputation may be secure."

"That is my hope. And it will be all the better for you, Azula, if you did not have any liaisons with any priest."

I could not but help smiling as I added, "But what about our daughter?"

He stopped dead in his tracks. The procession had to stop, too.

"Our… our daughter?" he asked. "Did I hear that right?"

"Yes, Marius," I answered boldly. "Our daughter."

"Oh, God have mercy…" he turned away. His dæmon hopped onto his hand and he clutched her close to him.

I softened; my new plan required him to be cooperative. "Don't be so sad."

"I have a daughter," he said again in Chinese. Wealtheow began to caw loudly in shock.

"Come now, come. You're making the soldiers stare."

He followed me meekly as the procession resumed, trying his best to quiet his dæmon. I felt more powerful than I had in years.

"God have mercy."

"He doesn't have to give mercy to _her_."

He was speechless.

"She is beautiful. And very clever." I added gently, "She is already very attached to her catechism."

He looked up. "What?"

"She and her dæmon – yes, she _has_ a dæmon – both love to read the stories of Christ and his fishermen, and Moses and his parting of the Red Sea, much more than they loved my stories of the Fire Nation. Take heart, Marius."

"Do you speak the truth?"

"Of course. Her name is Marisa."

"Marisa…" he repeated.

"Perhaps if my trial goes well, you can come to my chambers and meet her." I gave a little sigh. "I wonder if the alethiometer will tell her paternity."

"I… I don't know. If she does not ask it…"

"I will phrase my answer carefully. Marius – Father Marius – listen to me. I will protect your name to the extent of my power, if you promise me something."

"Yes?"

"If, no matter what becomes of me, you will become Marisa's legal guardian and take care of her for as long as you live."

"… and?"

"And? She is your daughter! There should be no 'and.'"

"I must meet the child first."

"Tch! Men. But there is no 'and.' I will save as much of your honor as I can. Protect Marisa, and you will restore your honor – by me and by her."

"That's the way you see it."

"I see no reason why you should see it differently."

He actually cracked a smile. "Stubborn as always, Azula." He glanced at me. "Princess of the Fire Nation. You know, all these years I still wonder what shape your dæmon would take, if he were visible."

"You're sure I have a dæmon?"

"Quite sure."

"What did you decide in regards to his shape?"

"Oh, my ideas were always vague. But a large cat of some sort – not a domestic mouser, but a creature of jungle and mountain – that's what I idly thought of."

"That sounds agreeable," I conceded.

He was silent, and I saw him clutch at the cross around his neck. Finally he said, "I will do this, then. I will become your child's legal guardian, in the event that the Magisterium claims her custody. I believe I can call in that favor." He swallowed. "But I still wish to meet the child."

"Of course." We had arrived at the door of the courtroom. "You will love her. Everyone who meets her loves her."

We parted ways. I did not watch to see where he took his seat, as I was led to the center of the courtroom.

The shivers of opium continued to haunt me as took my seat, with the eyes of all those holy hypocrites upon me. The sun was shining through the high windows, and braziers were already being lit. The sun and the fire gave me some strength.

I took my seat in the defendant's chair.

Someone was sitting opposite me, in a seat of just as much prominence. It was an old nun, with a heavy square jaw and deepset, black eyes. In her hands she held an instrument that looked like a compass, but was made of gold. She stared at me steadily as I sat down. Her dæmon was a large white dog – almost more of a wolf. When the court began she was named as "Sister Maria Pancrazio, Magisterium Alethiometrist." There was another, younger nun sitting by her, with a brightly frilled lizard for a dæmon, named "Sister Mary Jerome, translator."

My trial began.

First the judge (whose dæmon was a stern badger) asked me to swear an oath by God that I would tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He had a Bible brought to me. I lay my hand on it and swore in Chinese to ask mighty Agni to bear witness: what I spoke would be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

I saw Father Marius standing behind the alethiometrist. He cleared his throat and said, "She has so sworn, your Honor."

The judge then asked me to tell my name.

I responded, in my best English, "I am Azula, daughter of Firelord Ozai and his lady, Ursa; granddaughter of Firelord Azulon and Utena; great-grandaughter of Sozin the Mighty." I saw Sister Mary Jerome write it down.

Next, he asked me to tell my story. So I did. I began by saying that I had been born in another world – I refrained from mentioning either that I was a princess or a Firebender, as I thought neither would help my case, though it did sting my pride to leave them out. I said I had found a window to this world years ago, and gone through, and how Father Marius (a pure and shining example of Christian charity, I painted him) let this poor vagabond into his home.

I was careful to paint my departure as my act of pride and rebellion, and only brought his act of sending me away into the picture as a moment of conscience, an awakening. Then I went into the north, spent time with the witches (could not lie) and there I met Wikels. Then I became his mistress (could not lie) and… raised my child there (technically not a lie; I figured that saying that my daughter was born among the witches would ruin her).

I found not lying to be an incredibly exhausting experience.

But I was rewarded for my labor when my story was finished. There was a long period of protracted silence while Sister Mary Jerome finished translating my story to the alethiometrist. Then the older nun took the instrument in her hands and began to work with it. She fiddled with knobs, a look of utmost concentration on her face. Even her dæmon watched her alethiometer, barely seeming to blink.

'_How long can it take for a little fiddly doodad to answer a simple question_?' I wondered. I refused to be bored, though. I focused on the woman in front of me. I could feel Father Marius' eyes watching me. Was I wrong, to do what I did? If I had known I would be staying in this world for years, would I have done the same thing?

I thought of Marisa. I thought of the warmth I had known, years ago, the joy. I thought of the empty, bare prison cell on Ember Island.

'_Yes_,' I thought. '_Always yes_.'

Sister Maria Pancrazio put the alethiometer down. She spoke in a soft but decisive voice to Sister Mary Jerome. The younger nun nodded. Taking her dæmon in her hands, she turned to the judge and said,

"Your honor, the defendant has spoken the truth."

"In every respect?"

"Yes, in every respect."

"It is true, that she comes from another world?"

Sister Mary Jerome whispered swiftly with the older nun before every answer. "Yes, she comes from another world, that is not hell or heaven."

"Is she a witch?"

"No, she is not a witch."

"Does she have a dæmon?"

"Yes, but he is invisible."

Those words gave me a little thrill. All these years, I had wondered. No matter how much logic I had tried to apply, I wondered. Now I knew.

He was with me. Silent, invisible, but with me, a part of me. He was standing by me. I was less afraid.


	7. The Judgment

Azula and her Daughter

By Vifetoile

The Judgment

After this, much debate ensued. The English was too specified and theological and abstract for me to follow – I had become fluent in English, but mostly in regards to economic and cultural language. Truth be told, even on the floor of the courtroom I had summed up the proceedings, mentally, as "Blah, blah, blah." In my mind's eye I imagined saying this to my dæmon, and I imagined him laughing in return.

After a break for supper, Father Marius stood up.

I'd forgotten the power of speech that that man had. He had spoken once of the gift of charisma, of the Apostles who had tongues of fire fall upon them, so that they might speak and all would understand, and be compelled to follow. Now all that he had said returned to me. He was a great speaker.

His English was measured, so that I might understand as well as anyone in the court. He spoke of mercy. It seemed at first to me an empty word, as it had over these many years. The Avatar's mercy towards my father was a cruel joke. Mercy was for the weak, or merely another means to torture.

But when Marius spoke of mercy, the word became filled with beauty, goodness, light, all desirable things. He spoke of the woman caught in adultery who had been spared by the great Prophet of mercy – Jesus Himself. Marius pointed to the great crucifix which hung behind the seat of the judge, and asked, for what was that suffering, if we refuse mercy to a poor sinner now?

He knew me. The years had not erased his memory of what an eager student I was, so ready to debate good and evil, all of my strengths and faults which made me essentially human, no more, no less.

But he wasn't done yet. Now he began to speak of my child. "Her innocent child," he said, "Her little dæmon, not yet settled – you see them in your mind's eye crafted from hellfire. But I say this is not so. I say that she is as innocent – as blessedly, sacredly innocent as any child of her age – and we must have mercy for her sake. And she wants Christianity. More than that, she desires it. She wants the love of Christ through Jesus with her heart and soul. Will we deny her this, for her mother's error?"

Of course, as the custom demanded, he closed up his sermon by invoking the fear of hell and its many devils. He then caught my eye, once, just so that I was ready to perform the Sign of the Cross at the same time as everyone else in the courtroom.

The court was then adjourned so that the jury – twelve priests, not a single one younger than fifty, if I'm any judge – could file out and come to a decision.

I left the courtroom, I and my dæmon.

Put your scroll and ink away. This is more than enough for one day. I'm very tired.

I can't tell you much of the day that I waited. Only that when I returned to my chambers, I sank, shivering, in front of the mirror that had seen my resolution of that morning. I readied the needle for my laudanum dose, and then a nun interrupted me, saying that Father Marius had entered.

I swore in Chinese, but silenced myself as he approached. I glared up at him, expecting him to impose some moral judgement, but instead he bent down and took the laudanum needle in his hands. He took my wrist as gently as if I were a baby, and administered a small dose – enough to relieve my shivers.

"I didn't realize that this was a part of the Anointing of the Dying," I muttered, in Chinese.

"Don't be foolish," he answered, "You're not going to die."

"I will. I will if I stay in this world any longer. Something about it poisons me. I need to get home. If I'm not burned as a witch here I will die."

He called to the nurses, saying to get me to bed. When I was lying down and he was sitting on a chair opposite me, he said softly, "You say you will die?"

"Yes."

"… you aren't lying."

I shook my head.

We then had a very long talk, which I won't share here. If you ever meet Father Marius, you can ask him to tell it, because I certainly shall not.

As our talk came to a close, Marisa entered the room, accompanied by a nun. They were on their way to catechism – my daughter, going to catechism! She was shy of the strange man, and hid her face from him. Marius just looked at me, and I nodded. He then watched Marisa leave, then sighed heavily and sad he had to go.

He clasped my hand, and asked for God to bless me. I said nothing.

That night, I dreamed of Tenna Huang. I dreamed that she was atop a high mountain, or precipice, but watching me with the eyes of a hawk. In my dream, she leaned over the precipice, and above the whirling winds and snows, I heard her say, "Have faith in me." Even in my dream, I thought that would be a difficult request.

I awoke, and went to hear my sentence.

I had been found Not Guilty.

My sentence would begin at once. I would be transported to a convent, there to live out the rest of my days chanting prayers in solitude. My daughter would be given in adoption to a pious, wealthy, childless couple in England. And I would never see her again.

The next day, the nuns had packed up all the little belongings – heathen trinkets, they called them – that marked the room as mine. Two nuns were left in the room, and watched me suspiciously. I ignored them. What did I care to look at them when my darling, flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone, sat before me for the last time?

I watched her, memorized her face. I took her hands – so little, but already soft, the hands of nobility. I asked if she would be happy in her new life.

She nodded with firm decision – why should she hide that from me?

I stroked her hair, and said a few more things. I reminded her that she was the daughter of a Fire Lord, and of all that meant – to be of fire means to set out, to conquer, to be passionate and powerful and never yield. To be a princess means to be constantly striving for betterment. And I asked her to remember me.

She said that she would, always and everywhere. I knew she wasn't lying.

She stayed with me for a while longer, Marisa and her dæmon, Ozai. I sang to her the lullaby that my own mother sang to me, once or twice, before she went away:

"_Leaves from the vine,_

_Falling so slow,_

_Like fragile tiny shells_

_Drifting in the foam._

_Little soldier boy,_

_Come marching home._

_Brave soldier boy,_

_Come marching home."_

Marius entered. I deliberately gave Marisa to his keeping, in the hearing of the nuns, so they would be witnesses.

I held my child one last time, and let her go. I bade her farewell, and wished her honor.

Right before she left, she took my hand and kissed it. I gave her a last smile, so she would know she could leave me. Father Marius beckoned his daughter away.

They walked out of the room.

I collapsed onto my bed when they were gone. I felt like my fire was extinguished.


	8. Last Scroll

Azula and her Daughter

By Vifetoile

Last Scroll

There was a train. The next thing I remember clearly is a train. I was sitting on it, looking out the window. I held only one thing in my hands – the little blue flower Tenna Huang had given me.

I waited, looking out the window. Gradually I became aware of shapes flying fast outside of the glass – above the trees, between the clouds – that were _not_ birds. I focused on them, sitting up and putting my shoes back on. All at once a fairy bluebird made a sharp dive and came into clear sight against the window. It looked at me with one glittering eye, then flew away.

I understood the signal as clear as anything. I took a deep breath, and the little blue flower from the tundra caught fire as lightning was born in my hands.

The next moment everything exploded into fire and sound and speed, just the way I liked it.

In the confusion, the screaming, and the burning, the witches came, almost invisible, out of the forest, and took me with them. Tenna Huang was with them. She made me sleep, saying that it was the best thing for my strength. I believed her, and slept, no longer dulled by the opium to which I had been so long addicted.

I awoke again on an England shore. I recognized the trees, and the sand. I looked around, and I saw the window back to Ember Island.

That damn priest must have rubbed off on me, because I fell on the sand and thanked God that the window was still there.

Tenna Huang set me back on my feet. She told me to be strong, like a witch of the tundra, and to return home.

I nodded, and thanked her for all that she had done. She promised me that if I should ever return, or any of my own, to seek her, and she would help me. I said she would be welcome any time in the Fire Nation.

Then I turned away from the world where I had become a woman, and a mother, and walked back into my home. As soon as I stepped through the window and into the sunlight, felt my own sun upon my skin, I felt better. I could breathe at last. I kept walking, never once looking back, only cursing my heavy, impractical clothes.

I made my way out of the cave – it was low tide. I clambered onto the rocks, then the sand, splashing through the warm, ankle-deep sea water. Only once I was in the sun did I look back into the colder forested shore, and the window, and the world of my daughter.

Then I turned around and kept walking down the shoreline.

I continued to walk for a long, long time. '_Was it this long the last time I was here_?' I asked myself. Then the earth spun, and I collapsed.

Servants found me. They belonged to my brother, who was vacationing on Ember Island with his wife, Mai, and their children. The servants did not recognize me. It was not until Fire Lady Mai, making a visit of charity to a poor tramp, looked on me that she fell back with a cry of shock. She knew me at once.

They took me into their palace – I had ceased to think of it as 'my' palace a long time ago – and took care of me. It has taken me a few years, but I feel healthy again now. My brother has welcomed me into his court, but I prefer to stay on the outside of that, resting, recovering. My life is one of seclusion on Ember Island.

I still dream sometimes of my daughter. Sometimes she's the little girl that I knew. Other times she is older, growing into a beautiful young woman, with her dæmon a bright golden monkey, beautiful and brutal. I feel proud.

Why have I recorded all of this? I have tried to tell it before, and been told that it must have all been a long dream of fever, or insanity. The fools! The world of Father Marius and Tenna Huang – the world of my daughter, Marisa – and their dæmons was as real as this world, as the walls of Ba Sing Se or the blessed heat of Agni. I wish to record my experiences without interruption or mocking.

And there is one other purpose this serves: to explain why I have gone missing again.

I am going back.

The other world nearly killed me, and I shall not stay there for very long, but only long enough.

However, I am going on a spiritual retreat, back the shoreline, back through the window. I will be quite alone. My scribe, who owes her life to me, is the only other person who knows where I am going.

I have been told that there are ways among the people of the north – witches and Tartars – to extract the dæmon out of a person's spirit if it is not visible. I have heard of shamans, come from worlds without dæmons, whose shamanic rituals bring their dæmons into corporeality, along with other powers with spirits and nature.

I remember well what Tenna Huang has told me about those practices.

I shall become one of these shamans. I shall see my dæmon, and draw him out of me. And then I shall return to this world, with my dæmon, and we shall prove that I am not mad, and that I have never been mad.

All I ask now is that you wait. Wait for our return – that of me and my dæmon.

I, Azula, daughter of Ursa and Phoenix King Ozai, do testify to these writings and verify it with my signature. May Agni make all who hear these words see the truth burning like fire, and may he bless me on my new journey.

Azula, Mother of Marisa

* * *

A/N Thank you very much for reading. I know this story was destined to take strange directions, but if you've stayed with it all this time, thank you. And, of course, be sure to check out 'Marisa and her Mother,' which is this story from Marisa's point of view. Thank you again!


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